San Bernardino Airport corruption defendant enters not-guilty plea

SAN BERNARDINO - Former San Bernardino International Airport developer Scot Spencer pleaded not guilty Friday to criminal conspiracy and other charges during his arraignment via closed-circuit television in San Bernardino Superior Court.

Wearing orange jail scrubs and sitting before a video camera at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, Spencer sat quietly while Judge Kenneth Barr entered the not guilty plea on his behalf.

Spencer, 48, is accused of bilking more than $1 million from taxpayers in a fraudulent claim against the San Bernardino International Airport Authority.

Barr set Spencer's next court date for April 9 with a preliminary hearing on April 11.

Spencer is charged with two counts of criminal conspiracy, two counts of perjury, and one count of preparing false documentary evidence to the Grand Jury. A criminal defense attorney did not appear on his behalf Friday because Spencer has yet to retain or be assigned one, prosecutor Robert Brown said.

Spencer did not waive his right to a preliminary hearing within 10 days of his arraignment.

Spencer, who is being held in lieu of $1 million bail, and his business affiliate, Felice Luciano, were charged March 22 on suspicion of drafting a fraudulent charter jet lease agreement that Spencer presented to the San Bernardino Grand Jury in 2010 as part of an inquiry into suspected corruption at the airport.

Prosecutors allege Spencer filed a $1.75 million claim against the Airport Authority in 2008, alleging an airport official mistakenly leased out to a blimp manufacturing company hangar space that Spencer had already reserved. The mistake, Spencer said in his claim, cost him and Luciano a lease agreement with the Democratic National Committee to charter a jet for three months at $250,000 a month. Luciano's company, Unique Aviation, was to provide the jet to the Committee, Spencer said in his claim against the Airport Authority.

Instead of challenging Spencer in court, the Airport Authority opted to settle with him for $1.02 million despite never seeing the lease agreement. Prosecutors now say the contract never existed until 2010, when Spencer produced it "out of thin air" for the Grand Jury. Spencer even made a trip to New York City to have Luciano sign the sham agreement, prosecutors said.

Legal counsel for the Democratic National Committee told district attorney investigator Schyler Beaty the Committee never had any such contract with Spencer, according to Beaty's 13-page investigative report that served as the basis for the criminal charges.

Luciano, 69, of Tempe, AZ., surrendered to authorities Thursday afternoon, He appeared before Judge Dwight Moore for arraignment, pleading not guilty to two criminal conspiracy charges. Moore lowered Luciano's bail to $500,000, which Luciano posted.

Moore also ordered Luciano to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet and to give 24-hour notice for any interstate travel, with the exception of travel between New York City and New Jersey.

Luciano owns a business in New York City and a home in New Jersey, and commutes back and forth, Brown said.

Brown said he had been in contact with Luciano's attorney, Daniel Nixon, since Monday, arranging for Luciano's surrender.

"(Nixon) made arrangements very quickly for Mr. Luciano to surrender himself," Brown said.